Robin Hauser - Director/Producer

Robin is the director and producer of cause-based documentary films at Finish Line Features and President ofUnleashed Productions. Robin’s award-winning film, CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2015, and has caught the attention of the international tech industry and of policy makers and educators in Washington, DC and abroad. Robin’s most recent documentary, bias, explores unconscious bias and how it affects us socially and in the workplace. She delivered a TED talk about the impact of unconscious bias on artificial intelligence, and has spoken at the White House, on Capitol Hill, and at conferences worldwide on topics including diversity and inclusion, the importance of ethical AI, and gender equality. Robin has been featured in international publications: Forbes, Fortune, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, USA Today, Wired, Marie Claire, San Francisco Business Times and has appeared on Bloomberg TV, CNN, NPR, CNBC. Robin is currently a diplomat for American Film Showcase and has screened her films at US embassies on multiple continents.Press

Christie Herring - Producer/Editor

Christie Herring is an award-winning editor, producer, and director who has worked in documentary filmmaking for over 20 years. She recently edited and produced Code: Debugging the Gender Gap and edited (with Jean Kawahara) NOVA’s Point of No Return. Christie’s credits include work with PBS, National Geographic, A&E, MBC1, the History Channel, and numerous nonprofit and corporate clients. Her ITVS-funded film The Campaign aired on public television and screened at numerous film festivals and universities. She received her MA in Documentary Filmmaking from Stanford University, was a 2013 San Francisco Film Society Film House Fellow, is a member-owner of New Day Films, and is a 2018 American Film Showcase Expert.

John Behrens - Director of Photography

John Behrens is an Oakland based cinematographer with a multi-disciplinary background in narrative feature, live music, commercials, corporate and documentary feature films. He uses various techniques from the different disciplines to bring a richer visual style to the documentary form of filmmaking. His recent documentary features include: Spark: A Burning Man Story, Frontline: Death by Fire, Racing Extinction, The Mask You Live In, and Resilience.

Brook Holston - Supervising Producer

Brook Holston is a Supervising Producer with many years of experience on documentaries and film productions of all kinds. She specializes in budgeting, scheduling and the myriad details and logistics of getting film crews and tons of equipment to the right place at the right time on planes, trains, boats, helicopters,underwater and over. Brook has most recently supervised documentaries for HBO, National Geographic Television, Discovery, BBC and PBS.

Kathryn is an award winning composer, vocalist, and classically trained pianist. Her recent credits include ​Dear White People​, ​I Will Follow​, and ​Middle of Nowhere​. She’s also performed with a number of extraordinary artists including Ryuchi Sakamoto, k.d. Lang, Nas, and David Byrne.

Joanne Lubeck Esser - Associate Producer

Joanne received her BFA in Dramatic Arts from UC Santa Barbara, and has since been working as a professional Actor in TV, Film and Theatre. She joined the Finish Line Features team in early 2015, and as Associate Producer serves as a liaison between the film team and its many partners, coordinates private screenings and speaking engagements, and supports production both on and off set.

Melisa Nolan - Outreach and Social Media Producer

Melísa studied documentary filmmaking at Pitzer college, where she earned her degree in 2015. Since then she has worked as an assistant producer on 'CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap', and has managed social media profiles for companies that are aimed at giving voice to those that go underrepresented. She is passionate about producing caused-based media that ignites change.

Tierney Henderson – Associate Producer

Tierney studied Environmental Economics and English at UC Berkeley and joined the bias team after a term of Americorps service in northwestern Washington. Since pioneering her own (rather small) newspaper in the 4th grade, she has continued to hone her writing skills in support of social and environmental justice causes. As an Associate Producer on bias film, Tierney assists production across the board, from research and scripting to PR and distribution.

Jason discovered his passion for film after completing a short documentary about his father’s immigration from Perú to California. Since graduating from Columbia University, he has edited numerous shorts, trailers and assisted many features, including Oscar-nominated How to Survive a Plague. He most recently worked as Assistant Editor at ITVS and on the Emmy Award-winning Independent Lens series on PBS. Jason has found his voice in film, and loves empowering others through media.

Lucas is an independent documentary filmmaker and video journalist based in Oakland, California. His work focuses on the social, economic and racial justice movements that are on the frontlines fighting and envisioning alternatives to interlocking systems of oppression — from climate change to mass incarceration, public school budget cuts to attacks on reproductive health. He has produced for Fusion, AJ+, KPFA, and wide variety of short, online advocacy documentaries.

Sarah Cannon – Assistant Editor

Sarah Cannon is a Documentary Editor and Assistant Editor. She started her career in the National Geographic archives, and eventually found her way to documentary post-production. Sarah has worked as an Assistant Editor on feature films such as The Bandit (SXSW, 2016) and Resilience (Sundance, 2016) and was a Contributing Editor at the 2016 Sundance Documentary Edit and Story Lab. Sarah is from Shaker Heights, Ohio, and now lives in San Francisco, California.

Jim is a fine-artist, cinematographer and location sound recordist. He works on films of all kinds all over the world. During six years at the Center for Asian American Media fostering and creating new content for the public television market, he became intimately familiar with the challenges and rewards of independent production. Giving voice to marginalized communities and bringing minority programming out of the interstices of the human experience has been at the center of Jim’s work.

Adriano is a veteran sound recordist in the Bay Area. He started in the film business as a Production Designer and Art Director on several indie films before focusing on location sound mixing. He has a passion for music documentaries, and has worked on many, including ​Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings​, ​Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey​, and Sound Tracks for: ​Music Without Borders and American Masters​, and ​Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound​.

Molly animates, designs, composites, codes, and creates special effects for work ranging from documentary film titles, film poster design, motion graphics, animation, compositing and special effects, installation design and site specific projection mapping. Her team (she was lead animator and designer) won a Sundance Special Jury Award for Animation January 2014 for the documentary film Watchers of the Sky. Recent film projects include Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, A Good Job: Stories from the FDNY, Back on Board, The Abominable Crime, and CANCER: Emperor of All Maladies. Schwartz is an adjunct professor teaching at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. She also shows her animated videos, drawings, interactive artworks in public art commissions, installations, exhibitions and festivals worldwide.

Nikki Orzel - Web Developer

Nikki's keen eye for detail and design has afforded her 20 years of experience in web development, graphic design, video production, editing, film production, and corporate presentations. Born in Poland, she was raised in northern New Jersey where she graduated Cum Laude from William Patterson University with a B.A. in Communications with a focus in Film and Minors in Anthropology and Humanities Honors. In 2003, she founded Phoenix Studios and has since found home in California. Over the years Nikki has worked with clients such as Ricoh, Panasonic, Fuji Johnson & Johnson and many more; she is also passionate about independent ventures and provocative issues.